Why do you consider it a loophole?
The first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Cruz’s mother was born in Delaware and a U.S. citizen, ergo Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen.
FWIW, the same would have applied to President Obama if he had been born in Kenya, which he wasn’t.
/thread
lol @ black fur
yea it’s funny that minorities see Obama as “one of them” when there’s literally nothing about him that is the same except for the color of his skin. he didn’t grow up in poverty or in bad neighborhoods
It’s even more funny when you consider that those same minorities arguably are the worst off during Obama’s time in office.
Do most assume politicians are going to govern how they campaign? If not, does what they say really matter? The last budget deal certainly supports that most are full of shit and are actually on the same team.
I was going to say that natural born just means that they are legal US citizens at birth, but higgimond beat me to the punch (and with a better answer). Non-natural-born citizens means they went through a naturalization process at some point (or perhaps they were born unnaturally, which would be stuff for sci-fi).
So this means that children born to US citizens abroad are eligible for office, as are children born inside the US to someone who just climbed over the border the night before (though it might be harder for them to prove it).
Obama was born in Hawaii which feels far away but was US soil at the time, so it didn’t matter who his parents were, but even if he were born elsewhere, an American mother would be sufficient.
I don’t know if Ted Cruz was born in Canada, but if he had an American parent, that’s enough for the legal system.
Also, for all the complaining about how dems can’t remember that he’s half-white, it’s the Republicans that can’t seem to remember it either.
In any case, I’ve never been nor been at risk of being called the N word. The fact of Obama’s white mother has never made this the case for Barack. Given how race actually functions in society today, to say that he’s “not really black” because of his white mother, is pretty disingenuous. He still experienced life in public as someone black. He probably did have things a bit easier because he wasn’t super dark black, but that’s small change compared to the main experience of having dark skin.
If it was that black and white, you wouldn’t have legal scholars debate this ad nauseam during the last 6 days.
When those legal scholars are paid contributors to news networks that need content, you would.
I agree with higgy on this one. I dont htink this is a real issue and networks are making it one for ratings. There are “experts” that will testify anything in court for a fee, im sure you’ll find legal scholars willing to say whatever on tv for some coin as well.
I don’t think the criticism of Obama’s blackness stems from his having a white mother, but rather that his formative experiences are way different from other black men. He was raised by a white academic mother in Hawaii. While publicly he may be black, but I think it’s difficult to argue that he’s really the product of the african american experience.
I’ll point out that O hasn’t really been criticized too much for lack of “blackness” because his political positions are sympathetic to african americans. If he was playing for the other team, I bet it would be a different story. “You’re not one of us”…
Ted Cruz’s experience parallels my own in that I was born abroad to an American father and a Brazilian mother (who still retains sole Brazilian citizenship despite living in the US). I had always assumed that I would not qualify for the Presidency on that basis. Even though I now pretty much assume that I would legally qualify, I figure that Americans would probably brand me as having too “foreign” an influence growing up to have unwavering devotion to US interests. Not that anybody would elect a clown like me, anyway, but you get the idea.
This idea that it’s somehow wrong for Americans to think that way is pretty absurd. The US President is supposed to be born and bred American because he is so powerful. Obama had a lot of non-American (and frequently unAmerican) influences in his early life. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Cruz, however.